More Pie Conversation Hour

Meeting notes

7/29/04

Honolulu, HI

15 people attended the More Pie conversation hour at APA, and we discussed the following:

* We discussed safety for students of color, intersections of identities, and how to foster conversations across groups.

* We talked about how to help colleagues recognize privilege, and the White Privilege Conference in Iowa (http://www.whiteprivilegeconference.com/) was recommended as a resource.

* A large part of our discussion focused on the challenges of creating a safe space for conversations about diversity. Some of the challenges identified included: conflict that may arise among people at various points in identity development, how to get outside one's comfort zone while staying within one's safety zone, recognition that diversity training can bring up old wounds, and how to be touched (but not destroyed) by the pain we encounter.

* We discussed how to work with target and non-target groups together. Some suggestions included focusing on privilege rather than oppression, doing some work with the groups separately, and drawing on the books Overcoming Racism (Sue) and Unintentional Racism (Ridley).

* We discussed how people in positions of power (e.g., faculty) can deal most effectively with these issues. We acknowledged that we must be aware of the impact we have on others, we need to consider what we share about ourselves, and we may need to engage in different forms of activism than those we undertook as students.

* We noted the isolation individuals in target groups experience, and we identified the need for mentors, role models, and heroes.

* Suggestion for teaching: put statements about diversity in course materials and syllabus.

* Suggestion for admissions: look for students who are sensitive to people around them and exhibit an openness to taking risks.

* We concluded that we cannot promise safety for everyone as safety means different things to different people. In particular, we may not be able to simultaneously create a safe space for those who experience privilege and oppression related to a particular issue.

* We identified additional topics we would like to discuss: how to deal with a client's privilege in a clinical setting (both when it is the issue and when it's not), how to integrate guidelines for working with different populations (e.g., multicultural, LGB, women), and how to deal with psychologists who discriminate against certain marginalized groups (although perhaps being an advocate for other target groups).